BLACKWATER:The Mysterious Saga of the Caskey Family (5 page)

James Caskey's rickety frame made him appear frail, a general impression intensified by his movements, which were habitually slow and deliberate and displayed (as far as was consonant with a body that tended to jerkiness) some amount of flaccid grace. He certainly had never spent much time in the Caskey forests, and it was suspected that he didn't know as much about trees as a Caskey ought to know. His disinclination to tramp about forests and have his boots muddied, his trousers ripped with briars, and his way impeded with rattlesnakes was well-known, but he was a splendid worker in the office, and no one in town could compose a better resolution or draft a subtler letter. When the town proposed incorporation to the state legislature, James Caskey represented Perdido before that assembly, and after a fine speech there it was universally wondered why the man had never gone into politics.

James's examination of the mill-yard showed the Caskey warehouses in deplorable condition. Even those that were closed were ruined, for the water-soaked wood had buckled and warped. The lumber in the open sheds had all floated away to God only knew where. Inventory appeared a complete loss. The offices were wrecked too, but James had had the sense to fill two wagons with records current and immediately past, and these had been taken to higher land. They lay now under hay in the barn belonging to a potato farmer, but the mill had lost all records of everything before the year 1895. Tom De-Bordenave was in a much worse fix however, for he had opted to save lumber before records; the lumber was lost anyway, for the barn in which it had been stored had eventually washed away as well, and now he had no record of bills outstanding, of future orders, or even of addresses of his best Yankee customers.

After a couple of hours being rowed uselessly about his submerged mill and calling out commiserations to Tom DeBordenave, who was in another little green boat, looking over his adjoining property, James Caskey was taken back past his submerged house to the forest track that led to the Zion Grace Baptist Church. Bray, of course, had already told him of the strange appearance of the red-haired woman in the Osceola Hotel, and he had heard the same story from his nephew. James was more than a little curious to see her. No one in Perdido had talked about anything but the flood for so long that he was glad of the opportunity to hear about something that had nothing to do with water.

That Miss Elinor had remained the night at the Zion Grace Baptist Church he knew from Bray, because Bray had fetched another mattress from Annie Bell Driver's house. James Caskey hoped that Miss Elinor would be sitting out in front of the church when he walked past; that would save the subterfuge of seeking out Mary-Love or Sister or his daughter inside the church and bringing the conversation and the introductions gradually around to the rescued young woman.

Bray tied the little green boat to the exposed root of a tree at the edge of the floodwater—it had already subsided to such an extent that when they emerged on to dry land they were still within sight of Mary-Love's house on the edge of the town line. Mr. James and Bray walked rather quickly through the springy, damp forest.

After a few minutes of silence Bray, who was walking in one wagon track while Mr. James walked in the other, ventured the opinion that Mr. James would be better off "if he left that lady alone."

"Why you say that?" asked James curiously.

"I say that 'cause I know what I say."

James shrugged, and replied, "Bray, I don't believe you know what you are talking about."

"I do, Mr. James, I do!" cried Bray, but there was an end to the argument. Mr. James wasn't going to lengthen it by demanding specifics of Bray, and Bray wasn't going to volunteer any hard information on Miss Elinor for the simple reason that he hadn't any; and he wasn't going to tell any of his suspicions either, which were notably formless and might—if Miss Elinor proved to be nothing more than what she appeared to want to appear—reflect badly upon Bray.

After all the chilly floodwater that had passed beneath Bray's little boat, the forest seemed warm and dry and safe. James Caskey walked along smiling, turning his head quickly when he heard quail call, trying to see them but not succeeding.

"That her," said Bray in a hoarse whisper when they came within sight of the Zion Grace Church.

Elinor Dammert sat on the front steps of the church with James's daughter Grace huddled in her lap—it was almost as if she had been waiting for him there and had secured Grace in order to facilitate their meeting.

Bray hurried on toward the Driver house, but James, thanking the colored man for his trouble that afternoon, went up to the church and introduced himself to Elinor Dammert.

"You're visiting Perdido at a bad time," he remarked. "We cain't offer you but a poor sort of hospitality."

Elinor smiled. "There are worse things than a little high water."

"Is that child bothering you? Grace, are you bothering Miss Elinor?"

"She's not," said Elinor. "Grace likes me pretty well."

Grace hugged Elinor's neck to show her father how much she liked the new young woman.

"Oscar told me you lost all your money in the flood."

"I did. It was in my case, along with my certificates and diplomas."

"That's a real shame. I blame Bray. But we can get you on the Hummingbird back to Montgomery, at least."

"Montgomery?"

"Isn't that where you come from?"

"Went to school there. Huntingdon. I come from Wade, up in Fayette County."

"Send you back to Wade, then," said James with a smile. "Doesn't Grace want to see her daddy?" he said, unfolding his arms with a jerk that might have put one in mind of a child's jumping jack.

"No!" cried Grace, holding more tightly still to Elinor.

"You must think I've got someplace to go," said Elinor over Grace's shoulder.

"Not Wade?"

"That's where my people are from. All my people are dead," said Elinor Dammert, squeezing the child in her arms.

"I'm sorry. What will you do, then?" James Caskey asked solicitously.

"I came to Perdido because I heard there was a place in the school. If there is one, then I'll stay and teach."

"You know who you should ask, don't you?" said Grace from the arms that encircled her.

"Who should she ask, Grace?" said James.

"You!" cried Grace. Then, turning to Elinor: "Daddy's head of the board."

"That's right," said James. "So you should be asking me."

"That's who I'll ask then. I heard there was a vacancy."

"There wasn't," said James, "at least not before the flood."

"How do you mean?"

"Edna McGhee was teaching fourth grade—been teaching fourth grade for six years, I believe—but she told me night before last that she and Byrl were leaving town, that they weren't waiting around for the next flood to come and sweep them all down to Pensacola on the back of a love seat. So if Edna and Byrl leave town like they say they are, we've got nobody to teach fourth grade."

"Except me," said Elinor. "I would be happy to teach fourth. But you ought to remember, Mr. Caskey, I've lost my certificates and my diploma."

"Oh," said James with a smile, "but that was our fault, wasn't it? Wasn't it, Grace?"

Grace nodded her head vigorously, and threw her arms around Elinor's neck.

James stayed at the church for an hour more, talking only briefly with Mary-Love about the state of the mill, but speaking at great and evidently congenial length with Miss Elinor, who wouldn't put poor Grace down. He took his leave—with considerable reluctance—only when Tom DeBordenave and Henry Turk sent a man after him; the three millowners needed to talk concertedly about what was to be done now. Mary-Love told Sister it was absolutely scandalous that when James finally did go away he consigned his daughter to the care of the redheaded stranger, while his sister-in-law and his niece had stood in plain sight! "Mama," said Sister, "you look at Grace, she won't leave Miss Elinor alone! Miss Elinor has got a friend for life!"

Mary-Love, who had exhibited no desire to become intimate with Miss Elinor the previous evening or earlier that morning, now could hardly be brought to speak to the young woman—and wouldn't have allowed Sister to do so either, had not the desire for concrete information regarding Miss Elinor's antecedents and intentions been of overwhelming moment. When Sister brought her mother the news (obtained in one corner of the church, and delivered in another) that James was going to try to get Miss Elinor a place in the school, Mary-Love sighed deeply, and sat down on the hard bench with the air and the motion of a fighter who has just had all the wind knocked out of him in a single cruel blow. "Oh, Sister," said Mary-Love in a low moaning voice, "I knew she would do it..."

"Do what, Mama?"

"Worm her way in. Bore her way in. Dig right down in the mud of Perdido until she couldn't be dragged out again by seventeen men pulling on a rope that was tied around her neck—and I just wish it were!"

"Mama," cried Sister, looking around to where Elinor sat—quite demurely—talking to Miz Driver and still holding Grace Caskey upon her lap, "you are being hard on her, and I don't think she deserves it!"

"Just wait, Sister," said Mary-Love, "just wait and tell me that again in six months."

That night—not late, for when there was so much to do during the daylight that could not be accomplished in darkness, everyone went to sleep early— Oscar Caskey and his uncle James lay together in the bed that was usually occupied by Annie Bell Driver and her insignificant spouse. The Driver house was crowded with men, colored and white, very well-off and very poor, very old and quite young (though the youngest remained with their mothers in the church), so that every chamber was filled with mattresses and snoring.

Two of Miz Driver's sons slept on the floor at the foot of their parents' bed breathing noisily through their mouths, so when Oscar raised himself on his elbow and spoke to his uncle it was in a whisper.

"What are you gone do about Miss Elinor?" Oscar asked. "Mama told me you spent the morning with her. The whole morning, Mama said."

"Well, she's a nice girl," remarked James. "And I feel bad about what happened to her. Trapped in the Osceola, her bag gone, no money, no certificate, no job, no place to go. She is as bad off as anybody in this town—in fact, worse than most!"

"I know it," said Oscar softly. "I cain't understand why Mama took such a whole-cloth disliking to her. Makes things hard."

"Mary-Love doesn't want me to do anything," James agreed, tapping a bony finger against Oscar's pillow next to Oscar's nose. "Mary-Love doesn't want me to address another word in Miss Elinor's direction."

"But you are gone do something, aren't you, James?"

"Of course, I am! I'm gone get her a job. She's gone be teaching in September. In fact, she may have to start as soon as we get the school back open, because I don't think Byrl and Edna McGhee are even gone try to clean up their house, though I don't think there's probably more than two feet of mud on their kitchen floor. If they go—and Edna's got people in Tallahassee who'll take her and Byrl in right now— then Miss Elinor can start at the school right away."

"Well, that's good," said the younger man, and looked over his uncle's shoulder at the rising moon through the window. "But where is she gone live? She cain't go back to the Osceola—they charge two dollars a day. A fourth-grade teacher doesn't make that kind of money—not two dollars a day and having to buy food, too."

"I've already thought about it, Oscar," said James. "And what I've decided is—she's gone stay with Grace and me."

"What?" Oscar exclaimed so loudly that the Driver boys paused in their snoring as if to hear more or perhaps in order to incorporate the exclamation into their dreams. "What?" Oscar repeated in a far softer voice when the boys' snoring had resumed.

"When we get the house cleaned up, I mean," said James. "Grace loves Miss Elinor to death, and hasn't known her since yesterday morning."

"She's gone live with you!"

"We got room," said Oscar. "There's Grace, that loves her."

"James, what about Genevieve? What you imagine Genevieve is gone say when she comes back from Nashville and sees Miss Elinor sitting on the front porch with Grace in her lap?"

James Caskey turned over, away from his nephew. He didn't answer.

"What you gone say to Genevieve, James?" demanded Oscar in a whisper. "And for that matter, what you gone say to Mama?"

"Lord!" said James after a time, stretching his feet against the iron bars at the foot of the bed, "aren't you tired, Oscar? Aren't you worn out? I am. I got to get to sleep or I'm not gone be able to get up in the morning at all!"

The sun shone bright and hot all day Easter and for the next three days. The floodwaters evaporated or they ran down to the Gulf of Mexico or they sank into the sodden earth.

The inhabitants of Perdido came down from high ground into the town and slogged up to the doors of their homes to find that the mud had got inside, that their heaviest and best pieces of furniture had floated up to the ceiling, and later when the water receded, had been left in broken heaps on the floor. Mortar had washed out of brick foundations, and every board that had lain underwater was warped. Porches had collapsed. The rigid limbs of pigs and calves stuck out of the muck in everyone's front yard. There were drowned chickens on the stairs. Machinery of all kinds was clogged with sludge, and though patient little colored girls were set to the task of cleaning, all the mud was never to be got out again. Gas tanks and oil drums had floated out of the mill storage yards and smashed through the windows of houses, as if on purpose to wreak the greatest damage possible. Half the stained-glass windows of the churches had been broken. Hymnbooks in their racks on the backs of pews had become so saturated with water that they had, in their expansion, split the wood. The works of the new pipe organ at the Methodist church were filled with mud. There wasn't a single shop of Palafox Street that didn't lose its entire stock. And there wasn't a square foot of property in the entire town that didn't stink—of river mud and dead things and rotting clothing, rotting wood, and rotting food.